Liam Dann, Business Editor at Large for New Zealand’s Herald, works as a writer, columnist, radio commentator and as a presenter and producer of videos and podcasts.
How many people have it? Will we go to level 4? What's this costing the economy?
Will business bounce back? Will we ever get back to being Covid-19 free?
Like everyone in New Zealand right now, my limbic system is crying out for answers.
That's right, my limbic system …in my brain.
Yes, I did look that up. And, yes, there is debate in the neuroscience community about whether it's technically the limbic system or some other bit – please don't email me.
Some scientists see it as a natural response to entropy (the tendency of the universe to get ever more chaotic). Living things, with their ordered systems, lean in towards certainty by default.
The human brain rewards itself with endorphins when it feels a sense of certainty. That's why people like doing crosswords and going to pub quizzes.
Uncertainty though, feels like a drag.
Faced with the stress of uncertainty, the brain goes into overdrive trying to construct more certainty.
That would go somewhere to explaining the rise of conspiracy theorists in the Covid age.
Under stress of uncertainty the brain burns extra energy and it gets harder to focus on other issues around us, which also explains why we've been feeling tired and distracted in the past week.
Collectively, New Zealand's limbic systems have taken a pounding.
Being back in lockdown means coping with uncertainty. Photo / Ben Fraser
We were settled into a cosy, closed-border bubble, spending-up large in the certain expectation that the economy was better than we expected.
Things were getting less chaotic. We were giving the cold entropy of the universe a defiant two-fingered salute.
If we were playing the universe at cricket we were 380 for 2 chasing 500 to win ... then the universe took the new ball.
I don't know, that's probably a terrible analogy. I know more about cricket than I do about science.
But "I don't know" might be all I've got this week, because nobody really does.
And rather than pretending there is some obvious answer to the pandemic crisis that everyone is missing, maybe it is better to confront the uncertainty head on.
There's plenty of scientific articles on the topic of uncertainty and our stress response but it turns out there are also business articles.
That's because the ability to cope with uncertainty has been identified as one of the most valuable psychological traits in leaders.
Studies have shown that people hate uncertainty so much they'll often place a lower value on an uncertain outcome than the worst-possible outcome.
That's irrational of course but it highlights the extent that uncertainty stress clouds our judgement.
I haven't met Dr Ashley Bloomfield but his calm demeanour in the past week suggests he's blessed with a pretty athletic limbic system.
He appears to be capable of looking through high levels of uncertainty to stay focused on best possible outcomes.
Director general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield during the Covid-19 response update at Parliament this week. Photo / Mark Mitchell
I have had the good fortune of meeting leaders at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and they seem similarly blessed with limbic fortitude.
Perhaps coping with high levels of uncertainty is a prerequisite for the best economic and medical specialists.
Last week I asked Reserve Bank chief economist Yuong Ha about the economic impact of the current Auckland lockdown. He rattled through a range of variables, then settled on: "we just don't know".
I was later struck by just how emotively reassuring the answer was.
Perhaps it was the way he said it - conveying at once that he'd considered all the possibilities and come to peace with not knowing because it didn't alter the need for monetary policy action.
Then again, perhaps he just hadn't had time to do the math.
The Reserve Bank has been very busy. It signed off on an epic Monetary Policy Statement just hours after the lockdown news, boosting the nation's QE programme by $40 billion to $100 billion.
ASB senior economist Mark Smith did crunch some numbers last week and estimated that the current combination will cost the economy about $440 million a week.
To be fair, Smith's numbers were in a report that was mostly about coping with higher levels of uncertainty.
The economic impact of the fresh outbreak was "highly uncertain", he wrote.
He'd probably have rather we put that bit in the headline.
But we didn't, we put the big number at the top. We pandered to the limbic systems of our readers.
In the grand scheme it doesn't really matter if the number is $450m a week or $350m or $550m.
It's useful to have a ball-park figure but we can all agree it's generally bad.
As long as we're in agreement that a widespread Covid-19 outbreak would be worse – and it seems we mostly are – what really matters is how we look after those who are suffering most from the lockdown.
That's not me and my psychological need for certainty. I'll cope.
That's business people and workers watching the uncertainty of the outbreak and lockdown turn into certainty of business failure and job losses.
